A lot of backyard jobs in Oakville, Burlington and Mississauga come down to one number: the width of the side gate. A full size skid steer will do the work in a morning, but it is close to five feet wide and the gap between the house and the fence is three. So the job gets done with wheelbarrows and three guys, and it takes four days. The mini track loader exists for exactly that gap. The Bobcat MT100 in our fleet is 36 inches wide, runs on rubber tracks, and carries 1,000 lb in the bucket.
Think of a skid steer shrunk down to the width of a doorway. There is no cab and no seat. You stand on a platform at the back, run it with hand controls, and you can see the bucket, the tracks and whatever you are about to back into. It has the same kind of quick-attach plate as the big machines, so it is a loader first and a tool carrier second. It gets grouped with the track loaders on our site because that is what it is, just the smallest one.
Moving material through a gate. Gravel, topsoil, mulch, sand and river rock from the driveway to the backyard, and the dug-out soil coming the other way. This is most of what it does, and it replaces a wheelbarrow crew.
Patio, interlock and pool prep. Stripping sod, cutting out for the base, bringing in and spreading granular, and backfilling when the job is done.
Demolition cleanup. Hauling out a broken patio, an old walkway, deck footings or the rubble from a small interior demo where a wider machine cannot reach.
Grading and levelling. Fixing a yard that drains the wrong way, levelling for sod, shaping a base for a shed or a hot tub pad.
Working with an excavator. A micro excavator digs and the mini track loader carries the spoil away, which is the standard pairing on a tight residential dig. We covered sizing the digger in what fits in a backyard.
Access is the obvious one. The smallest wheeled skid steer we rent, the Bobcat S450, is 59 inches wide, and the T450 track loader is 55. Both need a double gate or an open side yard. The MT100 needs three feet.
The second is the ground. It is a light machine on tracks, so it puts far less pressure on a lawn than a wheeled skid steer, and less than a loaded wheelbarrow tire. It will still mark soft turf on tight turns, which is why the one in the photo is sitting on plywood. More on that below.
The third is visibility. With no cab, you can see everything around you, which matters two feet from a brick wall, a gas meter and an AC unit.
It is a 1,000 lb machine. A full skid of pavers or retaining wall block weighs two or three times that, so the MT100 will not lift one off the truck. Either the skid gets broken down by hand into smaller loads, or the delivery is dropped where a bigger machine can deal with it. The bucket is also smaller, so on an open site with room for a skid steer, the skid steer moves the same pile in a fraction of the trips. And it does not dig a trench or a footing, that is the excavator's job.
The honest rule: if a full size machine fits, rent the full size machine. If it does not fit, the mini track loader is the difference between a one day job and a four day job. If you are choosing between the bigger machines, skid steer vs. track loader covers that.
It goes out with a bucket, and the quick-attach plate takes other tools the same way a skid steer does. What you need depends on the job, and we wrote up what each one is for in the attachments guide. Tell us what you are doing when you ask for a quote and we will confirm what is available for the MT100 and put it on before it leaves the yard.
Measure the route, not just the gate. The narrowest point is often not the gate itself. It is the downspout, the meter, the AC unit, the window well or the corner of the deck. Walk the whole path with a tape.
Put plywood down. A few sheets along the route and at the spot where the machine turns saves the lawn and keeps mud off the walkway. It is the cheapest part of the job.
Plan the turns. Tracks tear grass when the machine spins on the spot. Wide, slow turns leave almost nothing behind.
Call for the locate if you are breaking ground. Stripping sod and cutting a base counts. The locate is free through Ontario One Call and takes several business days, so start it before you book the machine.
Mind the season. In November the ground is wet and soft until it freezes, then hard and slick. Tracks handle both better than wheels, but soft ground marks more, so the plywood matters more this time of year.
The MT100 goes out by float from the yard on Speers Road in Oakville to Oakville, Burlington, Mississauga, Milton and Toronto, on daily, weekly or monthly rates. It comes off the truck at the curb or the driveway and drives itself to the back. A weekend patio prep is a daily or two day rental. If the job has three days or more of material to move, ask for the weekly rate. For the wet, sloppy part of a job where material has to travel a long way, the tracked buggy is worth asking about as well.
Send us the gate width, what you are moving and roughly how much of it. Request a quote or call (905) 580-7368 and we will tell you whether the MT100 is the right machine or whether something bigger will fit.
Need a machine this week? Request a quote or call (905) 580-7368 and we will get the float moving.
Daily, weekly and monthly rates on a fleet that's inspected after every rental. Quotes back fast, with delivery across the GTA.